This invention relates to a medicine or a pharmaceutical composition, which contains the pulverized product of the seed of ume fruit (Japanese apricots) or its processed product.
The ume trees, the original home of which is considered to be in the central or southern regions of China, have features that they are in blossom leading other trees in the early spring and emit a nice smell. From old times the ume trees with flowers have been used for admiration and the ume fruits are for food. The ume trees have mainly been cultivated in the eastern Asia, and it does not seem to have been introduced into England and America.
The pickled umes made of ume fruits have been one of the important preservable foods from old times in Japan. And the ume wine, which is also produced by utilizing ume fruits as the raw material, has been highly esteemed as one of the table luxuries. Formerly, the pickled umes and ume wine had been produced at each home, and the seeds of the pickled umes had been discarded at each home. And, after the sarcocarp part of the ume fruits used for production of the ume wine was eaten, the remaining seeds had also been discarded.
The seeds of ume fruits can not usually be eaten because of their very hard outer core. The sarcocarp part of the pickled umes was eaten, and the seeds of them were discarded. Recently, the pickled umes are manufactured in factories. As for some portion of the ume fruits harvested, after taking out the seeds, the sarcocarp part is processed to yield products such as xe2x80x9cume juicexe2x80x9d and xe2x80x9cume sarcocarp extractxe2x80x9d, and the like, which are on the market. In this case the seeds of the ume fruits have also been discarded. The ume wine has also been manufactured by the use of ume fruits as a raw material, and, after yielding the ume wine, the ume fruits were separated from the ume wine, then the ume fruits themselves have been discarded.
Recently, especially in the advanced countries, foods go around sufficiently, and men and women are both predisposed to be obese due to supernutrition. In addition, due to insufficient exercise, they have a low metabolic rate, and, as a result, nutrients of foods taken could not be sufficiently carried to the cells. Then, wastes can be hardly excreted from the body, and these result in prevalence of various types of diseases, for example, diseases incidental to civilization, adult disease and life-style related disease.
Various western medicines have been used as therapeutics for these diseases. Western medicines are requested to clarify the mechanisms of action by which their effectiveness can be rationally explained, so a huge fund is needed to develop new western medicines. Further, western medicines are not totally free of toxicity or side effects.
On the other hand, herb medicines have been used mainly on the basis of an old tradition, and although the mechanisms of action for the effectiveness are unclear in many cases, there seems no trend of declining in their popularity, because of their mild therapeutic actions. The ume sarcocarp extract mentioned above is one of such traditional medicines in Japan.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a useful medicine or a pharmaceutical composition for prevention of or treatment for various diseases in humans or animals including diseases, for example, diseases incidental to civilization, adult diseases and life-style related diseases substantially without side effects or toxicity, which can easily be manufactured at a low cost, and are easily available at home without indication of a doctor or prescription.
Generally speaking, seeds of plants are rich in nutrients, and useful as foodstuffs or health foods. The present inventor has hitherto been interested in this point, and has studied to find how to utilize the seeds of ume fruits effectively, which have been discarded so far, as mentioned above. Then, the inventor made trial products of new foods obtained by pulverizing the seeds of ume fruits after cleansing and drying. The trial products showed a prominent beneficial effect in some subjects incidentally having suffered from gastric hyperacidity among the people who took it. This finding was the first unforeseen discovery. Soon after, among the people who took the new foods, some ones had an experience of being full of vitality or spirits in their daily life, or of disappearance of spots in the skin. Thus, the information of the new health foods of the present invention was passed from mouth to mouth, and as a result, many people rushed to the inventor and had a hope of trying to take the new foods. There were several subjects having suffered from various diseases among the people who took the new foods of the present invention. Such people had an experience of improvement of the diseases after taking the foods of the present invention, which was judged by themselves or doctors, and the present inventor recorded the reports from them. As a result, it was unexpectedly and surprisingly found that, as shown in the description of the examples below, the pulverized product of the seeds of ume fruits (hereinafter referred to simply as the ume seeds) or its processed product (for example, the extracted product from the pulverized product and so on) was effective in improving or curing the symptoms such as gastric ulcer, gastric dilatation, gastric hyperacidity, stomachache, gastrospasm, heartburn, constipation, duodenal ulcer, herpes, stiffness of the shoulders, menorrhalgia, menoxenia, poor circulation, asthma, infantile asthma, heart diseases, feebleness, hangover, insomnia, cystitis, rheumatism, menopausal syndrome, hepatitis C, liver diseases, pollinosis, dermatosis, atopic dermatitis, leukemia, cancer, arteriosclerosis, hypertension, neurosis, kann-no mushi (a worm which is supposed to cause irascibility in children), bed-wetting, spots in the skin, hyperlipidemia, diabetes mellitus, prostatomegaly, gout, obesity, fatty liver, nausea, arrhythmias, myocardial infarction, cardiac diseases, allergic diseases, various types of polyps, Basedow""s disease, hypothyroidism, or headache, and so on. The inventor expects that this invention will be approved as a medicine by the Welfare Ministry in every country in the world in the near future, and will contribute to the promotion of happiness of the people.
Thus the present invention relates to:
(1) A medicine, which comprises the pulverized product of ume seed or its processed product,
(2) A medicine as described in (1) above, wherein the medicine is a preventive or therapeutic agent for gastric ulcer, gastric dilatation, gastric hyperacidity, stomachache, gastrospasm, heartburn, constipation, duodenal ulcer, herpes, stiffness of the shoulders, menorrhalgia, menoxenia, poor circulation, asthma, infantile asthma, heart diseases, feebleness, hangover, insomnia, cystitis, rheumatism, menopausal syndrome, hepatitis C, liver diseases, pollinosis, dermatosis, atopic dermatitis, leukemia, cancer, arteriosclerosis, hypertension, neurosis, kann-no mushi (a worm which is supposed in Japan to cause irascibility in children), bed-wetting, spots in the skin, hyperlipidemia, diabetes mellitus, prostatomegaly, gout, obesity, fatty liver, nausea, arrhythmias, myocardial infarction, cardiac diseases, allergic diseases, various types of polyps, Basedow""s disease, hypothyroidism, or headache or the like.
(3) A medicine as described in (1) above, wherein the medicine is a preventive or therapeutic agent for hepatitis C, leukemia, cancer, hypertension, asthma in children, gastric hyperacidity or insomnia.
(4) A medicine as described in (1) above, wherein ume seed contains at least one of the outer core, sarcocarp and embryo.
(5) A medicine as described in (1), wherein ume seed is derived from pickled ume or ume-wine ume,
(6) A medicine as described in (1) above produced by the manufacturing method, which is characterized by that the pulverized product of the ume seed is obtained by pulverizing the seed derived from pickled ume or the seed derived from ume-wine ume,
(7) A medicine as described in (1) above, wherein the processed product is an extracted product of the pulverized product,
(8) A medicine as described in (1) above, wherein the preparation form of the medicine is powders, tablets, granules or capsules,
(9) A health food or drink, which comprises the pulverized product of ume seed or its processed product,
(10) A medicine, health food or drink containing the pulverized product of the embryo of ume seed or its processed product,
(11) A pulverized product of ume seed or its processed product, which is characterized by that the pulverized product is of 100 to 900 xcexcm in the long axis, or of 30 to 150 mesh-pass in the particle diameter.